


To Look Upon It Once

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Other - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3769067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps some mortal boats did find the straight way, and come to the Ancient West. <br/>Inspired by an obscure Silmarillion line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Look Upon It Once

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

The small boat drifted on.

It was a very small boat, with barely enough room for its one passenger to sit comfortably, and it swayed and bobbed among the waves.

It passed lamp-lit quays, and those who stood there started and exclaimed at the sight of it, for rarely indeed did mortal boats find the straight way and so come in time to the haven at Alqualondë. Never before it had happened within their knowledge, and the watchers wondered what great doom was upon this man.

But the man in the boat did not look up, or perhaps he could not look up.

Water trickled down his face, and dripped slowly onto the boat's base.

And the little boat still bobbed on, and the man did not move, and the watchers wondered whether the only doom that was upon him was the doom of dying.

It seemed so.

But then he moved, and with what seemed to be a tremendous effort, raised his head and looked west. And there with failing sight, he saw the White Mountain, lofty Taniquetil, beautiful and terrible.

And then he fell back, and breathed no more, and lay in his boat in the last great stillness.

*******

_Author's Note: AU? Perhaps._


End file.
